Optocore was utilized heavily at the recent Orange Warsaw Festival in Poland, which was headlined by Beyoncé. Held at the National Stadium (Stadion Narodowy) since 2008 the event’s growth has been such that for the last three years the Festival has been broadcast by TVN. The Optocore equipment used by turnkey festival service specialists, PogoArt and provided by distributors, M.Ostrowski Sp.j, was principally used for recording purposes, and for providing a mix for web streaming.
“The biggest challenge,” states Optocore support engineer Maciek Janiszewski, “was the distance from the stage to the recording truck — which was around 300m. Also there were issues regarding the connectivity on stage — as there was no information provided by the bands on what sort of signal was being delivered for recording.”
Two parallel systems were in operation: the first was a Yamaha CL5 with Rio Series interfaces, providing analogue connectivity on stage; the second was an Optocore set-up, with DD4ME digital I/O, with two MADI input and two MADI output ports, and DD32R-FX digital interface (for AES-EBU) connected to Yamaha AD8HR 8-channel remote microphone preamp/AD converters on stage. In addition, an Optocore DD2FR-FX interface was connected via MADI to a Yamaha DM2000 console, providing a digital split and another 64 channels available for recording.
The Optocore system was preconfigured with two macros, so that the sound engineer could easily, with a single click, select which signals from the stage would be output on both MADI and DD2FR-FX. The first macro recalled the routing of 64 MADI channels from DD4ME on stage to both DD2FR-FX MADI output ports, while the second macro recalled repatching both DD2FR-FX MADI outputs to analogue inputs from stage. As a result one click in the software changed the entire configuration and changed the source for all outputs between analogue (DD32R-FX with AD8HRs) and digital (DD4ME) input signals.
“Designing the Optocore system in such a way ensured not only clean signal distribution over the vast distance from stage to truck but also the flexibility and simplicity required in relaying the appropriate MADI signals for recording purposes,” confirmed Maciek.
The Festival itself was once again a huge success, with the 58,000 capacity stadium rocking not only to the music of Beyoncé, but also other headliners including Fatboy Slim, Tinie Tempah, Basement Jaxx and Cypress Hill.
